While on a recent call with some of my fellow professional truck driving friends, it dawned on me how much of a pain it truly is to worry about food freshness out on the road. For those who choose to carry several days or weeks worth of food on the truck, spoilage can be a serious problem. While more and more drivers are becoming health conscious out there and steering away from the traditional trucker diet of processed foods and greasy roadside meals, this continues to be a growing concern amongst those of us that are trying to not only eat better, but try to do it in as cost efficient a manner as possible.
Although I am home more often than most in my daily routine, a lot of what I do in terms of healthy eating still carries over from what I learned when driving long distance. It was during that time that I realized buying in larger quantity was cheaper in the long run, but being that it was just my wife and I, the larger quantities found at stores like Costco and Sam's Club were hard to consume before they expired. It hit me in an infomercial, believe it or not, that air is what makes most food go bad. Although I purchased it from my local Costco and not the infomercial, the FoodSaver vacuum sealer seemed to be the perfect solution to my problem of spoilage.
Having a new kitchen gadget to add to my collection, I was now very satisfied with being able to divide up large bulk quantities of food and preserve them by sucking the air out of their storage containers. This also came in handy for controlling my serving portions, as prior to this I might be inclined to eat a whole bag of my favorite snack during one long stretch of driving, rather than a healthier 1-cup serving. Bulk bin snacks such as nuts and raw granola could now be bought cheap by the pound and divided into smaller snack sized vacuum seal bags.
There are plenty of different vacuum seal products out there with many different options to fit your particular need. With my particular system there is everything from custom sizeable bags to hard plastic storage containers with lids. I am able to easily store everything from cheese to cut up vegetables and everything in between. With the air removed from these different storage options your food can last up to five times longer than it would with other conventional storage methods. Being in a daycab and having the ability to be home regularly, I have not forgotten the methods for food storage I used when driving over-the-road. I still use many of them daily, but with the added convenience of being able to store what I am not using in the pantry at home and not in my sleeper cabinets. After all, food saved from spoilage is a good way to keep your money in your pocket and out of the trash!